Using Design Thinking to create the best experiences
Eco-Friendly Drilling
(E.F.D.) Virtual Oil Rig
Project: In 2012, the Houston Area Research Center (H.A.R.C.) was exploring alternative technologies that were more eco-friendly than traditional oil rig equipment. They needed a new platform to engage their audience and sponsors, as well as an application that did not used Flash, as at that time all of the Flash content on their site was being faced out.
Solution: Our team harnessed the power of Unity3D and created a Virtual Oil Rig. The oil rig highlights equipment that could be upgraded to eco-friendly alternatives, let's the player explore the oil rig, and contains a training scenario in case of an emergency in the oil rig.
Marketing & Education
One of the main goals of the application was to market eco-friendly alternatives to traditional oil drilling technologies. Our solution was to make different equipment that highlights green when you hover on top of it. If clicked, a manual appears with information on the equipment, ability to see a 360 view of the equipment, video links, and pdf resources given by the client.
Simulating Time and Weather
An important aspect of this application was the ability to change the weather and time of day to see how oil rig operations changed. These options were very well received by the audience, with some recruits stating that they had never seeing an oil rig at night or while snowing, and to see that in the application allow them to think better about the safety procedures that they would have to follow under those conditions.
Training Simulation
Towards the end of the project, a training scenario was created to teach the player what to do in case of an oil spill, as well as the ability to do local multiplayer through a LAN connection.